TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Designing Medical Devices for the Ear
Students are introduced to biomedical engineering and the engineering design process through a short lecture and an activity in which they design their own medical devices for retrieving foreign bodies from the ear canal. They learn...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Solving Everyday Problems Using the Engineering Design Cycle
Students are introduced to two real-life problems that can be solved by using the engineering design process. For the first one, they watch a slide presentation that shows how students use the engineering design process to build an...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Logan Explains the Engineering Design Process
What are the steps in the engineering design process? What activities do engineers actually complete during those steps? Learners learn the steps and then apply their new knowledge in this design challenge.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 7: Improve and Redesign/manufacture a Product
As young scholars learn more about the manufacturing process, they use what they learned from testing their designs in the previous activity to continue to improve and redesign. Students also have the opportunity to manufacture their...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Be "Cool" With Popsicle Engineering
Beginning kindergarteners are introduced to science and engineering concepts through questions such as "What is a Scientist?" and "What is an Engineer?", and go on to compare and contrast the two. They are introduced to five steps of the...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Fancy Feet
Students use the engineering design process to solve a real-world problem - shoe engineering! Working in small teams, students design, build and test a pair of wearable platform or high-heeled shoes, taking into consideration the stress...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Lunch in Outer Space!
Students learn about the unique challenges astronauts face while eating in outer space. They explore different food choices and food packaging. Students learn about the engineering design process, and then, as NASA engineering teams,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Wristwatch Design for the Visually Impaired
Students are given a fictional client statement and required to follow the steps of the engineering design process to design a new wristwatch face for a visually impaired student at their school.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Requirements & Constraints: Making Model Parking Garages
The difference between an architect and an engineer is sometimes confusing because their roles in building design can be similar. Students experience a bit of both professions by following a set of requirements and meeting given...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Groundwater Detectives
Student teams locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. Then they predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling. They also use the engineering design process to come up...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Introducing Engineering
There is something gross under the cafeteria table. Do you pick it up? Gross! How about we mimic a bird's beak to solve the problem of picking up our trash? This lesson models walking through the first few steps of the Engineering Design...
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Water, Water, Everywhere: The Engineering Design Process
Students brainstorm new ideas during part of the engineering process of designing a water purification system.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: The Design Process: Creating a Stronger Truss
This is an interesting project that explores which geometrical shapes make the strongest bridge truss structures. It is a good introduction to the engineering design process. You'll design three different trusses, and use online...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Paper Drop Design Competition
Using paper, paper clips and tape, student teams design flying devices to (1) stay in the air as long as possible and (2) land as close as possible to a given target. Student teams will use the engineering design process to guide them...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Simple Machines and Modern Day Engineering Analogies
Students apply the mechanical advantages and problem-solving capabilities of six types of simple machines (wedge, wheel and axle, lever, inclined plane, screw, pulley) as they discuss modern structures in the spirit of the engineers and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Is Engineering? What Is Design?
An overview of engineering and design which introduces the students to the basic steps of the engineering design process. This instructional activity challenges students to plan a picnic for their friends by considering its various...
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Can You Canoe?
Teams of students learn about the engineering design process as they design, build, and test a model canoe made with everyday materials. Lesson focuses on how materials engineering has impacted the manufacturing of canoes over time.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: The Artificial Bicep
Students learn more about how muscles work and how biomedical engineers can help keep the muscular system healthy. Following the engineering design process, they create their own biomedical device to aid in the recovery of a strained...
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Working With Watermills
Teams of learners design, build, test, and evaluate a working watermill made from everyday materials. Lesson explores how watermills generate energy from water, while students gain an understanding of the structural engineering design...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Modern Day Pyramids
Students investigate the ways in which ancient technologies - six types of simple machines and combinations - are used to construct modern buildings. As they work together to solve a design problem (designing and building a modern...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Edible Rovers High School
Students act as Mars exploratory rover engineers, designing, building and displaying their edible rovers to a design review. To begin, they evaluate rover equipment and material options to determine which parts might fit in their given...
TryEngineering
Try Engineering: Designing Drones
This instructional activity focuses on helicopters and drones, how they fly, how they are used in different ways that help people and the environment. Teams of students explore helicopter flight; and design, build, and test their own...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Hull Design and Hydrodynamics
Experiment with designs of different hulls for boats to see which hulls are suited for which purpose. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently beginning with an abstract, objective, and introduction, followed by a...
Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, Stevens Institute of Technology
Ciese: Scratch My Back: Children's Engineering Activity
This lesson is based on the book Big Smelly Bear by Britta Teckentrup. In the book, a big, smelly bear has an itch in the middle of his back and can't scratch it. Nothing the bear tries works. Using the Engineering Design Process,...